When you start to blog, they tell you the only way it will succeed is if you make it about one single thing. If you’re a writer who begins to design umbrellas, you have to make a separate blog for that. Which means your life is diced up into little compartments like those plastic serial [...]

Someone keeps writing me here to say, ‘Yo Soy Deprimida,’ which in Spanish means, ‘I Am Depressed.’ I am glad to hear you. Depression is sorrow. Sorrow is a thing I know something about. It is the source of all the happiness I have found in many years of living. Somtimes you’re sad for a [...]

Like me, sunflowers are not good companion plants but they are do serve as a reminder not to suck up all the air and water around you and then complain when nobody listens. Here they are sticking way out on the corner, practically begging the drunks that come by to pick them off. I’ve always [...]

From an otherwise undistinguished prewar children’s anthology I found this picture with no story attached. In a cold European forest at night this poor but bright young man tells the story of his wanderings to whoever will listen. There is much diversity among his audience. He tells the old stories with his own twist. There [...]

“When old and lame, the wise woman knows best the grace of dancing,” is probably my favorite of the renkus out here. Haven’t found yet who said it but it is posted below against an ominous morning sky. “Red sky at night. Sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning. Sailor’s take warning.” Looking down towards the [...]

This is my beloved vine, harboring mosquitos while lurking ominously overhead. Yes, there are some drawbacks but mostly worth it. (I never said it WASN’T buggy…) Rain, heat, puddles equal what they used to call,’skeeters’ in the backwoods. Monday, though lathered with bug spray, I was bitten on the wrist, ankle, foot and other more [...]

This quote from Goethe smacked me in the face like a wet kipper when I read it my first year in bookselling. Reminder that there is a life outside the papers and strivings, a rich full one that will grow as you grow. If ever there was a kickbutt-get-your-bottom-OFF-that-chair summons, Goethe nailed it. I put [...]

This is a picture of my house and the architectural excrescance behind it that has a crack in the foundation and I am hoping when it falls, will not crumble in my direction. I am inside, writing this. When something awful happens to you online, the great thing is it has happened to many others [...]

I’ve lived a good share of my life following the wisdom of this young man. He’ll be dead 200 years in 2017, yet his advice is just as fresh today. I know he’s not looking too chipper in this picture but he died at 45 of TB. Into that life he crammed many fascinating friends,(and [...]